On The Street: Cool Kids

Teenagehood used to be about glorious sartorial fuck-ups—dabbling with a dodgy haircut, experimenting with some of pop's moth-eaten '70s cast-offs or chopping up some old curtains in the hopes that a cocktail dress might emerge from the wreckage. Looking a little garish or crazily un-stylish was just kind of to be expected. It wasn't until a couple of weekends ago, surveying the crowd at McCarren Pool that we realized that 10th graders are actually cool now. They are quirky-looking and bespectacled (Fabulous Franny's anyone?) and wear flirty little grunge-era florals. And if they are not blatantly one-upping us with their T-shirt game (peep the "I get my muscles from my dad" shirt) then they probably out on the town wearing our favorite tee. So yeah, we'll definitely be caving under all this peer pressure soon, adding Margiela-clad prepubescent bloggers to our google reader and all that—just as soon as we figure where the hell we misplaced our retainers.